13 ms·

Love is biological bribery?

157 points by dnetesn 5y ago

motohagiography 5y ago
Arguably, we have a culture and education problem, where the idea of love as being invested in someone else's happiness gets conflated with sex as a hook for roping someone into co-dependency. The whole enterprise is rotten. When you stop using the word, and just mentally recognize, "I feel invested in this persons happiness," it provides for a more sound emotional foundation. When you have lust for someone, you aren't necessarily invested in their happiness, it's really something else. The reason (imo) it gets so messy is because we have elevated and romanticized co-dependency as a culture. Biologically, a woman only really needs a man around for the first few years of infant vulnerability, and not even that these days, however, the flipside of that is that we ignore the weaning and developmental effect of having fathers around to offset the dependent identity a child has on its mother. I'm of a more conservative view that when we started raising kids to become adults, we stopped raising them to be men and women, and so we are left with adult, vaguely defined persons, who take supervision from proxies for their mothers in a co-dependent relationship with interchangeable authorities, and who are not fully actualized men and women. Language itself comes from our mothers, and to keep us surviving as children, the base sentiments complex language is designed to transmit are disgust and shame, to warn you away from danger and misbehavior, so as to keep us safe. Our internal monlologue of self speaks to us in language, so most of our ontology of being is predicated on this substrate. It's that powerful. When you look at traditional or tribal rites of passage, they tend to have an element of disgust and danger in them, where you are forced to become the thing that as a child you were forbidden to be, and then in this state, you are celebrated and accepted into the group as a trusted man or woman, because you have survived the disgusting things that were forbidden, and you are now you, and the tribe loves you for that which is the true you, and not your child identity defined by good behaviour. We don't have those rites of passage anymore, and so we have generations of unweaned "adult people" who aren't accepted men or women, who can still be operated on by pulling these childhood linguistic levers of disgust and shame. Love in a world of adults, and not of men and women, is an absolute disaster as a result, since the long tail of men are treating women like their mothers, and women have to hide who they truly are to represent as these weird sexless adult authority figures. This is a bit much for an off hand comment, but it's important in this context, as by rethinking love as being invested in someones happiness, it creates the necessary personal boundary that enables us to have something to bring to a relationship, instead of self sacrificing for a co-dependent identity regulated by an internal monologue of shame.
fristechill 5y ago
Love as I understand it is not strictly an emotion but rather an absence of fear when attending to the object of love. It appears emotional because there's a change in the baseline emotional state. The results is a whole-hearted engagement which with sufficient investment of time has the potential to become creative.
mensetmanusman 5y ago
Articles that speak of evolution as a person with intent are strange to me.
temptemptemp111 5y ago
techer 5y ago
“Slavoj Žižek: Love is evil“ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hg7qdowoemo https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hg7qdowoemo
- dahart 5y ago
  I didn’t follow any of that, it didn’t make any sense at all, but he sure is entertaining to watch, and like totally adorable somehow. I’d have to speculate that he is using the words “love” and “evil” to mean very different things than anyone else using those words. Who is this guy? I’ve seen a few other links to videos of him flying into outer space on other topics posted on HN recently. I just went and read a bit of his Wikipedia page, so I see he’s a philosopher, but I don’t know what the abstract terms materialism and Hegelian idealism and Lancanian psychoanalysis mean. Is there a less abstract way to understand his position, or important philosophical contributions he’s made that would help me understand him or his ideas on love?
  - robocat 5y ago
    Try: https://iep.utm.edu/zizek/ https://iep.utm.edu/zizek/ He is interesting and from the little I know he says some useful things, however I suspect you really need to spend some effort to understand his philosophy before you can understand a stand-alone video of him. The “Love is Evil” video on its surface certainly seems just like nonsense to me too.
  - ksarw 5y ago
    I used to watch some of Zizek's videos, though I hadn't seen the one that was linked until now. I'm no student of philosophy though, just a casual viewer so I don't think I can help much in answering your questions. I will say that he is definitely using uncommon definitions of the words "love" and "evil" as far as I can tell. As to who is this guy, I personally would recommend this video if you are trying to get a better sense of his thoughts as it is relatively clear and covers a large number of stances (the analogy at 7:15 is quite amusing): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x0eyNkNpL0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x0eyNkNpL0 On a side note, I am pleased though that you find him entertaining to watch regardless. I find it disappointing when people take speakers like Zizek too seriously; I think even if 80% of what is said is not insightful/intelligible, the occasional grain of truth can be very much worth it.
esarbe 5y ago
Love can be many things. Love is lust, is the desire for company, the yearning for friendship; it's a single word used for a plethora of emotions. We would do better to differentiate these and make it clear what we mean when we say 'I love you'. Someone looking for a partner does not mean the same as someone under the spells of passion and desire.
- CaptArmchair 5y ago
  The Ancient Greeks had distinct terms for different types of love. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_words_for_love https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_words_for_love
blable2 5y ago
The title made me chuckle. *Must read* as it has a "Love Scientist" with photo.
esarbe 5y ago
Love and lust and passion are things that are difficult to square with our (mis)understanding as 'rational' entities; we are not thinking machines, we're reproduction machines. > But a lot of women, in particular, find it hard to accept that they are still looking for a protector and a provider. Our biology doesn't care what your carefully crafted self-image looks like; in the end male and female are two reproductive strategies that perpetuate the genes. It would do us good to keep that in mind and not be willfully blind to the biological sources of our behavior.
_8j50 5y ago
Confusing intimacy with love? Even then, I am convinced the biological need for sex is rooted in a core psychological need for intimacy (to know and mutually be known), this need is so crucial, the body works to help obtain it similar to food or water.
- esarbe 5y ago
  > I am convinced the biological need for sex is rooted in a core psychological need for intimacy The biological need for sex is rooted in the necessity for reproduction. > this need is so crucial, the body works to help obtain it similar to food or water. The body serves the need for reproduction.
  - _8j50 5y ago
    There is no need for reproduction biologically. Socially, sure. But if anything, offsprings put the survival of the parent at risk (more bellies to feed, more risks to take, more exposure to disease). However there is a psychological need to reproduce but certainly secondary to intimacy, which makes sense since children require a stable environment which is only helped by parents' intimacy.
    - vitno 5y ago
      The process of evolution doesn't care much about survival of the parent if they aren't passing down genes.
    - SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
      There is a biological need - the only reason that the specimen exists is because their parents had that urge. Evolution will 100% select those who want to breed over those who don't. Those who don't won't pass on their genetics and their evolution will end.
    - fleddr 5y ago
      There's no such thing as a psychological need when it comes to reproduction. The very existence of the person having such needs (which you made up) is based on biological reproduction, which trumps any and all needs. You cannot have needs if you don't exist. Likewise, offspring cannot be a risk to you if you don't exist. The point of life is to reproduce. The point of life before the moment you reproduce is to not die.
throw0101a 5y ago
The English language is lacking in some words and so a whole bunch of things get lumped under the single word of "love": * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_words_for_love https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_words_for_love * https://iep.utm.edu/love/ https://iep.utm.edu/love/ For Aristotle (Rhet. ii, 4) and Aquinas (STh I-II,26 4), to love is to "will the good of the other"; it is an act of 'reason' rather than emotion. That is how one can "love one's enemy": it's not necessarily that we find pleasure from them, but rather we desire that they (e.g.) reform their ways.
- Connor_Creegan 5y ago
  While this is true, the interviewee Anne Machin clarifies that she is referring to the phenomenon of romantic love (Ἔρως). That said, I find it interesting that there is no mention of the phenomenon of same-sex romance. This exception alone would seem to fly in the face of the notion that romantic love can be conceptually-modeled as a mere epiphenomenon of genetic sovereignty and autonomy. I guess the counter would be that this lies outside the boundaries of ordinary romantic love and therefore should be taxonomically-distinct? Who knows. These gene-centered theories of evolution require quite a bit of ad hoc rationalization, speculation and routine defiance of folk phenomenology.
  - hirundo 5y ago
    > This exception alone would seem to fly in the face of the notion that romantic love can be conceptually-modeled as a mere epiphenomenon of genetic sovereignty and autonomy. Biologically romantic love between same sex partners is more or less equivalent to love with an infertile partner. Such love doesn't have to mean that there has been evolutionary pressure for such feelings to those particular partners. It could just mean that there has been strong evolutionary pressure to support the feeling of love, but the genetic mechanisms for identifying a fertile partner of the complimentary sex is imperfect. If it works often enough that sufficient babies are produced those false positives are tolerable. This can be thought of as similar to disease resistance. When someone young dies from a disease it isn't evidence that we are evolved to die from the disease, just that our biology has limitations. Of course we can't rule out that homosexual and other infertile relationships have evolutionary advantages. See e.g. John Maynard Smith's "sneaky fuckers strategy".
tpoacher 5y ago
There's a corollary to the whole "love is contingent on reward chemicals and can be addictive". Which is that people can use the initial large offering vs later withholding of love to manipulate you. And boy have I seen this done. Particularly in friends who have manipulative parents, and in sociopathic individuals in the context of relationships (a.k.a. the 'love bombing' technique: https://datingasociopath.com/sociopath-character-traits/cunning-and-manipulative/i-love-you/seducing-and-love-bombing/ https://datingasociopath.com/sociopath-character-traits/cunn...)
andrewclunn 5y ago
Barrin92 5y ago
I think this has it the wrong way around. it's not that love is biological bribery, it's that someone studying biology has tried to redefine biological bribery to be love. Love comes in many shapes. Love for one's family, one's nation, one's profession, even God. It's at best uninformative, at worst nonsensical to try to reduce all of this to interaction found in sexual interaction / reproduction. It's a common thing with these evo-psych explanations. If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. The more scientific sounding version of thinking every skyscraper represents a phallus. I doubt this even makes sense across cultural boundaries. For example the fact that oxytocin is apparently indicative of how long a relationsihp lasts. In a Western culture where people nowadays are prone to form relationships spontaneously, sure. In a culture where parents organize relationships based on class, caste or faith? Probably not.
- hoseja 5y ago
  >one's nation, one's profession, even God Those are cases of institutions hijacking the mechanism of love.
  - bencollier49 5y ago
    If someone wanted to bulldoze your home town to build a nuclear reactor, you'd be upset, right? That said, there are different sorts of love. The Greeks had many words for it. We're impoverished in that regard.
  - blowski 5y ago
    If such institutions have successfully hijacked love pretty much universally for much of human history, then it's worth saying they're connected.
    - hoseja 5y ago
      Depends on what you consider history. Written history? Sure, writing is the DNA of memes; but humans have been around for much longer before these parasites learned to exploit our sociality.
- 5y ago
eric4smith 5y ago
The author was talking about romantic love. And indeed, they are right. Love is biological bribery. Science has proven that love is a mix of chemistry and emotions. (Or emotions caused by chemistry) that waxes and wanes and goes away over time. And the main reason for it is the perpetuation of the species by a mechanism that is outside of our consciousness and reason. When love is gone, what is generally left is (sometimes hopefully) a caring, appreciation, and high regard for the object of "love". And this is exactly why modern divorce rates are so high. Because marriages were always meant to be a coming together for reasons of survival, children, sharing of responsibilities and a series of common missions. Instead we have ruined the institution by making the main reason for it to be "love". So when the love inevitably wanes -- as it naturally does, if the couple has nothing else left (children, shared goals, common missions), why stay together? And yes, some people might say they have been in love for decades. Which is great! But it rarely happens. Generally love waxes and wanes. Rises and falls. Comes and goes. And those same couples that have been in love for decades will tell you all of the downswings and upswings over the years. I wish more people knew and understood this. A lot of heartache could be saved. Then again, the world would not be so interesting. Sigh.
- makeitdouble 5y ago
  I’m not sure to get your point on marriage. If people divorce because they have no other reason to stay together (no survival level risk, children, common missions etc.) how is it “ruined” ? Seems to me it’s necessity has just waned over time, being single has become a lot more viable in our societies and the system is pretty much working as it’s supposed to.
  - Kbelicius 5y ago
    > If people divorce because they have no other reason to stay together (no survival level risk, children, common missions etc.) how is it “ruined” ? You aren't reading what GP has written so maybe you'll read it if I quote it without the context. GP wrote: "Instead we have ruined the institution by making the main reason for it to be 'love'.". So the answer to your question would be, it isn't. The institution of marriage isn't ruined, in GPs view, by the act of divorce when love is gone and there are no other reasons to say together but when entering in to marriage when no other reason besides love exists.
foxhop 5y ago
Love is energy which compells forward motion in the universe. We know that the law of attraction manifests collaboration & cooperation from the smallest parts like our models of the atom, to a single cell, to a human's body, to the mind & the global subconscious. This law is love. Love is not always right but it's the fuel, it's what drives this whole mad universe and it's you and it's me and we are excellent! Can you imagine, your heart beating for you each and everyday, the bacteria in your gut digesting food for your cells to uptake and absorb. Everything in perfect balance and homeostasis! Sure we may fall ill, but our bodies repair even without our focus. In fact it's often better to sleep when feeling sick and turn down the conscious ego altogether and slip into lala land: to the place of archetypes, the shadow, the subconscious, and unconscious. Our bodies rescue us, we do nothing (wu wei) and only need to wait through the uncomfortable now. A new day will rise and after a short time we feel whole again. We have all experienced this. We know this because this is love. Our bodies love us and if we treat others inside the universal system with love, I don't see why peaceful Freedom United with Love cannot find a natural balance, especially if love were inherently part of the technological constraints and engineering decisions. You know what true love is, you might have forgotten, but you know it. Love must be grown voluntary.
- caaqil 5y ago
  The "law of attraction" is not a thing, it's a pseudoscientific concept used by woo-woo peddlers. It is impressive how much text this comment contains and how little sense it makes.
  - foxhop 5y ago
    & ur comment is also poetry in motion. Do not spiral yourself down too low, u might not find a way back out! Good luck & I love u regardless for showing me significant contrast to my own well being & awareness, conciousness, & spirit.
hasmanean 5y ago
No, love is a low entropy state between two people, like a chemical bond. Emotions like hatred, greed, jealousy etc have no place in that state.
tantalor 5y ago
Gives a new meaning to the phrase "having chemistry with someone"
bobthechef 5y ago
swayvil 5y ago
Love is a vision of divinity. Inevitable when illusion is stripped away. Which happens when you look at anything long enough. Be it an intentional looking or a fascination born of biochemical trickery.
amelius 5y ago
> people with higher levels of oxytocin generally are more open to relationships, they are more committed to wanting to work toward a relationship Can people get a test for this?
- krageon 5y ago
  No, because it is the kind of blanket statement that is a huge red flag for someone constructing a story that sounds nice to them.
  - msoad 5y ago
    It should not be too difficult to measure tho. Imagine a speed dating setup
    - amelius 5y ago
      Even nicer if you can predict oxytocin from DNA sequences.
    - krageon 5y ago
      Oxytocin has a popsci connotation and an actual use and those are only peripherally related.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
Sapere_Aude 5y ago
I love material reductionism. It pretends to explain the thing it actually renders meaningless with its "explanation". This "explanation" is utter rubbish mumbled by the philsophically inept. It even pretends to be "science" all the while bringing in their "darwinian" "evolutionary" philosophy. (One thing I wonder often is, don't these people know fallacies, e.g. when trying to prove sth. to be caused by evolution, as a proof for evolution, while assuming evolution to be true in the first place? Classic "begging the question"-fallacy.)
- quenix 5y ago
  You don't seem to bring forth any real rebuttal of the arguments in the article. I personally think it's a bit oversimplified but very much viable. Why don't you think so?
Starlevel001 5y ago
Hypocrite that you are, for you trust the chemicals in your brain to tell you that they are chemicals. All knowledge is ultimately based on that which we cannot prove. Will you fight? Or will you perish like a dog?
hnthrowaway0315 5y ago
When I was young, I always wondered if LOVE is just a biological reaction to some chemical substance secreted by the brain when you meet someone you like. And of course after failing multiple times to "help" the brains of girls I liked to secret such substance, I quickly retreated to the safe haven of computer world and never thought about it. Now I read the article and wonder the same question: Is there a way to recreate the experience of love by agitating the brain to secret certain chemical substances?
- jarpschop 5y ago
  People would get hooked to that worse than heroin lol. I recently fell for a girl and being without her definitely felt like having abstinence syndrome. I was obsessively and relentlessly thinking about her every waking second.
  - hnthrowaway0315 5y ago
    haha good luck man, you are having fun~~ yeah agreed with the addiction things.
- kirsebaer 5y ago
  Try MDMA.
- andruby 5y ago
  > Is there a way to recreate the experience of love by agitating the brain to secret certain chemical substances? Yes. But I really don't think you want to go there.
- meowface 5y ago
  Oxytocin nasal sprays may be able to temporarily induce a portion of this feeling, for some.
- ciphol 5y ago
  That idea is called "aphrodisiacs". Many have been tried throughout history but I don't think any of them really work.
DoreenMichele 5y ago
A couple of thoughts: I ran an email list at one point where we posted articles about research into brain wiring and discussed it and this doesn't jibe with my understanding. My understanding is that emotion is another means to relate to certain kinds of information. It's like a TLDR, a file summing up all of your experiences with X and informing you how to relate to X. So if your brain tells you "I'm in love!" that's shorthand for something like "This person meets some bar compared to other people." It's a summary of your life experience with all people, all romantic situations and all of your interactions with this one individual. People with high affect can make snap judgements because they have a strong signal, a loud TLDR file telling them "I love this!" or "I hate this!" People with low affect can't make snap decisions. They have to take their time to think things through and make conscious, intentional choices. They can't go with their gut. So I don't think of love as bribery. Love is a density of information telling you don't sweat the small stuff. You think this is someone to bet your future on when it's not possible to ever know for sure how that will go. The second thought is that her idea of choosing your friends doesn't resonate with me. Just like with romantic partners, my friends are people I just hit it off with. That mutual spark is there or it's not. I work at friendship. Friends are important to me. But if I could just decide somewhat unilaterally that "I want to be friends with x person" and make that happen, I wouldn't have been so socially isolated in recent years.
- visarga 5y ago
  Looks like the value function in reinforcement learning. You assign a high value to being close to your loved one. The value function is like you say a synthesis of your past experiences, learning what leads to positive or negative rewards. The rewards themselves are biologically coded in our brains by evolutionary pressures, but the value function is like integrating rewards over chains of situations and actions.
mediocregopher 5y ago
> That’s what separates us from the animals. Animals don’t use love to manipulate others. We do. I'm not convinced this isn't the exact modus operandi of my cat.
zby 5y ago
The article does not explain why bribery is the chosen analogy and not for example salary or something. Bribery for me is about paying someone to do something bad - here they talk about the reward i.e. the payment part but there is no mention about the 'something bad' part.
blurker 5y ago
> At the basis of love are four neurochemicals. Each has a different role but together they motivate us or to give us confidence to go into social relationships. So love is basically some chemicals causing us to feel lovey. Makes sense... > That’s what separates us from the animals. Animals don’t use love to manipulate others. We do. Wait, what? Do none of the animals have the same chemical processes? This is a big red flag to me. Time and time again we have found that when people have said "animals don't X, only humans do" we find that to be wrong. I stopped reading after this.
deweywsu 5y ago
circlefavshape 5y ago
In my experience article that says "X is what separates us from the animals" is very likely to have a high horseshit quotient
- diag 5y ago
  Right. Humans are animals. Trying to make a distinction on a biological level is always going to be tenuous.
kang 5y ago
> Love is chemicals & emotions No, love is not chemicals & emotions but the state of chemicals & emotions that is cause-effect for inter-human attraction/stable togetherness. Wow! IMAGINE THINKING LOVE EVOLVED at some point in time. There are other issues as well. To start off if I defined love minimally as that which is the cause of attraction then, --- What is the cause of attraction between poles of a magnet? * Using the socratic method, the concept of an "ideal North Pole" is inseparable from the "ideal South Pole", their togetherness is eternal and when they are not together they are attracted to be together, when they are together it is sustainable, so much so that the reason for their creation is for the other to exist. Why do they behave so though? Because they are "circular". No they are not circular jk but because they have a "natural configuration" or simply put its their "nature". Nature of circles is to roll, similarly, what is an object that has nature is to be attracted to this subject. --- Love itself, is eternal, and has no origin. It is name for a "thing"(conceptual, abstract, but a noun), like a circle. We say one's mind is in prayer but technically whole of their "natural configuration" is praying. Similarly, we say someone's body is in the game, but their whole self is involved. Similarly thus, heart is in love but their "whole configuration" is in the act of active loving, during their existence. At the very least it must NOT be taken for granted that a common subset of such configuration exists for all humans. Nature of their lover is subjective to lovers. Furthermore, to end, when you study the properties of theos and of love, they turn out to be same 'things'; god is love and love is god. OP needs to read about what they are writing.
cryptonector 5y ago
Love and empathy may well just be strategies that do well evolutionarily, but they are what we have. Without them we wouldn't be social animals because we'd have no problem killing each other -- "bribery" would not even have a place. I'd rather think of these qualities as noble than as mere evolutionary accidents that amount to "bribery".
sytelus 5y ago
If people getting married were forced to spend a day in divorce court, very few people would ever dare get married. "Love" is the biggest snake oil humans have produced and marketted to death. It's all good for survival of the species but if you want to change the world, do something above and beyon, make an impact - avoid this "love" bullshit and, no matter what happens, don't get married. Songs of the sirens will be loud and irresistable. You must learn to close your ears or you will ruin your life.
LeroyRaz 5y ago
What a mess. A) you are your brain chemistry. It makes no difference to the nature of love that you can point to chemical mechanisms. B) It is easier to cooperate between people with asymmetric wants and offers, as you a far more likely to have a mutually beneficial trade. It is rubbish to say that somehow building a relationship with someone of the other gender is harder, or evolutionarily more 'advanced' This reads like someone just using the credibility of research (which may or may not be credible) to put forwards their only slightly related pet philosophising. I feel this is actually doing a disservice to the wider community of those who try and discuss and study e.g. evolutionary motives, or gender differences, by being full of so much dross.

157 points by dnetesn 5y ago

Arguably, we have a culture and education problem, where the idea of love as being invested in someone else's happiness gets conflated with sex as a hook for roping someone into co-dependency. The whole enterprise is rotten. When you stop using the word, and just mentally recognize, "I feel invested in this persons happiness," it provides for a more sound emotional foundation. When you have lust for someone, you aren't necessarily invested in their happiness, it's really something else. The reason (imo) it gets so messy is because we have elevated and romanticized co-dependency as a culture. Biologically, a woman only really needs a man around for the first few years of infant vulnerability, and not even that these days, however, the flipside of that is that we ignore the weaning and developmental effect of having fathers around to offset the dependent identity a child has on its mother. I'm of a more conservative view that when we started raising kids to become adults, we stopped raising them to be men and women, and so we are left with adult, vaguely defined persons, who take supervision from proxies for their mothers in a co-dependent relationship with interchangeable authorities, and who are not fully actualized men and women. Language itself comes from our mothers, and to keep us surviving as children, the base sentiments complex language is designed to transmit are disgust and shame, to warn you away from danger and misbehavior, so as to keep us safe. Our internal monlologue of self speaks to us in language, so most of our ontology of being is predicated on this substrate. It's that powerful. When you look at traditional or tribal rites of passage, they tend to have an element of disgust and danger in them, where you are forced to become the thing that as a child you were forbidden to be, and then in this state, you are celebrated and accepted into the group as a trusted man or woman, because you have survived the disgusting things that were forbidden, and you are now you, and the tribe loves you for that which is the true you, and not your child identity defined by good behaviour. We don't have those rites of passage anymore, and so we have generations of unweaned "adult people" who aren't accepted men or women, who can still be operated on by pulling these childhood linguistic levers of disgust and shame. Love in a world of adults, and not of men and women, is an absolute disaster as a result, since the long tail of men are treating women like their mothers, and women have to hide who they truly are to represent as these weird sexless adult authority figures. This is a bit much for an off hand comment, but it's important in this context, as by rethinking love as being invested in someones happiness, it creates the necessary personal boundary that enables us to have something to bring to a relationship, instead of self sacrificing for a co-dependent identity regulated by an internal monologue of shame.

fristechill 5y ago

Love as I understand it is not strictly an emotion but rather an absence of fear when attending to the object of love. It appears emotional because there's a change in the baseline emotional state. The results is a whole-hearted engagement which with sufficient investment of time has the potential to become creative.

mensetmanusman 5y ago

Articles that speak of evolution as a person with intent are strange to me.

temptemptemp111 5y ago

techer 5y ago

“Slavoj Žižek: Love is evil“ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hg7qdowoemo https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hg7qdowoemo

dahart 5y ago
I didn’t follow any of that, it didn’t make any sense at all, but he sure is entertaining to watch, and like totally adorable somehow. I’d have to speculate that he is using the words “love” and “evil” to mean very different things than anyone else using those words. Who is this guy? I’ve seen a few other links to videos of him flying into outer space on other topics posted on HN recently. I just went and read a bit of his Wikipedia page, so I see he’s a philosopher, but I don’t know what the abstract terms materialism and Hegelian idealism and Lancanian psychoanalysis mean. Is there a less abstract way to understand his position, or important philosophical contributions he’s made that would help me understand him or his ideas on love?
- robocat 5y ago
  Try: https://iep.utm.edu/zizek/ https://iep.utm.edu/zizek/ He is interesting and from the little I know he says some useful things, however I suspect you really need to spend some effort to understand his philosophy before you can understand a stand-alone video of him. The “Love is Evil” video on its surface certainly seems just like nonsense to me too.
- ksarw 5y ago
  I used to watch some of Zizek's videos, though I hadn't seen the one that was linked until now. I'm no student of philosophy though, just a casual viewer so I don't think I can help much in answering your questions. I will say that he is definitely using uncommon definitions of the words "love" and "evil" as far as I can tell. As to who is this guy, I personally would recommend this video if you are trying to get a better sense of his thoughts as it is relatively clear and covers a large number of stances (the analogy at 7:15 is quite amusing): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x0eyNkNpL0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x0eyNkNpL0 On a side note, I am pleased though that you find him entertaining to watch regardless. I find it disappointing when people take speakers like Zizek too seriously; I think even if 80% of what is said is not insightful/intelligible, the occasional grain of truth can be very much worth it.

esarbe 5y ago

Love can be many things. Love is lust, is the desire for company, the yearning for friendship; it's a single word used for a plethora of emotions. We would do better to differentiate these and make it clear what we mean when we say 'I love you'. Someone looking for a partner does not mean the same as someone under the spells of passion and desire.

CaptArmchair 5y ago
The Ancient Greeks had distinct terms for different types of love. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_words_for_love https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_words_for_love

blable2 5y ago

The title made me chuckle. *Must read* as it has a "Love Scientist" with photo.

esarbe 5y ago

Love and lust and passion are things that are difficult to square with our (mis)understanding as 'rational' entities; we are not thinking machines, we're reproduction machines. > But a lot of women, in particular, find it hard to accept that they are still looking for a protector and a provider. Our biology doesn't care what your carefully crafted self-image looks like; in the end male and female are two reproductive strategies that perpetuate the genes. It would do us good to keep that in mind and not be willfully blind to the biological sources of our behavior.

_8j50 5y ago

Confusing intimacy with love? Even then, I am convinced the biological need for sex is rooted in a core psychological need for intimacy (to know and mutually be known), this need is so crucial, the body works to help obtain it similar to food or water.

esarbe 5y ago
> I am convinced the biological need for sex is rooted in a core psychological need for intimacy The biological need for sex is rooted in the necessity for reproduction. > this need is so crucial, the body works to help obtain it similar to food or water. The body serves the need for reproduction.
- _8j50 5y ago
  There is no need for reproduction biologically. Socially, sure. But if anything, offsprings put the survival of the parent at risk (more bellies to feed, more risks to take, more exposure to disease). However there is a psychological need to reproduce but certainly secondary to intimacy, which makes sense since children require a stable environment which is only helped by parents' intimacy.
  - vitno 5y ago
    The process of evolution doesn't care much about survival of the parent if they aren't passing down genes.
  - SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
    There is a biological need - the only reason that the specimen exists is because their parents had that urge. Evolution will 100% select those who want to breed over those who don't. Those who don't won't pass on their genetics and their evolution will end.
  - fleddr 5y ago
    There's no such thing as a psychological need when it comes to reproduction. The very existence of the person having such needs (which you made up) is based on biological reproduction, which trumps any and all needs. You cannot have needs if you don't exist. Likewise, offspring cannot be a risk to you if you don't exist. The point of life is to reproduce. The point of life before the moment you reproduce is to not die.

throw0101a 5y ago

The English language is lacking in some words and so a whole bunch of things get lumped under the single word of "love": * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_words_for_love https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_words_for_love * https://iep.utm.edu/love/ https://iep.utm.edu/love/ For Aristotle (Rhet. ii, 4) and Aquinas (STh I-II,26 4), to love is to "will the good of the other"; it is an act of 'reason' rather than emotion. That is how one can "love one's enemy": it's not necessarily that we find pleasure from them, but rather we desire that they (e.g.) reform their ways.

Connor_Creegan 5y ago
While this is true, the interviewee Anne Machin clarifies that she is referring to the phenomenon of romantic love (Ἔρως). That said, I find it interesting that there is no mention of the phenomenon of same-sex romance. This exception alone would seem to fly in the face of the notion that romantic love can be conceptually-modeled as a mere epiphenomenon of genetic sovereignty and autonomy. I guess the counter would be that this lies outside the boundaries of ordinary romantic love and therefore should be taxonomically-distinct? Who knows. These gene-centered theories of evolution require quite a bit of ad hoc rationalization, speculation and routine defiance of folk phenomenology.
- hirundo 5y ago
  > This exception alone would seem to fly in the face of the notion that romantic love can be conceptually-modeled as a mere epiphenomenon of genetic sovereignty and autonomy. Biologically romantic love between same sex partners is more or less equivalent to love with an infertile partner. Such love doesn't have to mean that there has been evolutionary pressure for such feelings to those particular partners. It could just mean that there has been strong evolutionary pressure to support the feeling of love, but the genetic mechanisms for identifying a fertile partner of the complimentary sex is imperfect. If it works often enough that sufficient babies are produced those false positives are tolerable. This can be thought of as similar to disease resistance. When someone young dies from a disease it isn't evidence that we are evolved to die from the disease, just that our biology has limitations. Of course we can't rule out that homosexual and other infertile relationships have evolutionary advantages. See e.g. John Maynard Smith's "sneaky fuckers strategy".

tpoacher 5y ago

There's a corollary to the whole "love is contingent on reward chemicals and can be addictive". Which is that people can use the initial large offering vs later withholding of love to manipulate you. And boy have I seen this done. Particularly in friends who have manipulative parents, and in sociopathic individuals in the context of relationships (a.k.a. the 'love bombing' technique: https://datingasociopath.com/sociopath-character-traits/cunning-and-manipulative/i-love-you/seducing-and-love-bombing/ https://datingasociopath.com/sociopath-character-traits/cunn...)

andrewclunn 5y ago

Barrin92 5y ago

I think this has it the wrong way around. it's not that love is biological bribery, it's that someone studying biology has tried to redefine biological bribery to be love. Love comes in many shapes. Love for one's family, one's nation, one's profession, even God. It's at best uninformative, at worst nonsensical to try to reduce all of this to interaction found in sexual interaction / reproduction. It's a common thing with these evo-psych explanations. If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. The more scientific sounding version of thinking every skyscraper represents a phallus. I doubt this even makes sense across cultural boundaries. For example the fact that oxytocin is apparently indicative of how long a relationsihp lasts. In a Western culture where people nowadays are prone to form relationships spontaneously, sure. In a culture where parents organize relationships based on class, caste or faith? Probably not.

hoseja 5y ago
>one's nation, one's profession, even God Those are cases of institutions hijacking the mechanism of love.
- bencollier49 5y ago
  If someone wanted to bulldoze your home town to build a nuclear reactor, you'd be upset, right? That said, there are different sorts of love. The Greeks had many words for it. We're impoverished in that regard.
- blowski 5y ago
  If such institutions have successfully hijacked love pretty much universally for much of human history, then it's worth saying they're connected.
  - hoseja 5y ago
    Depends on what you consider history. Written history? Sure, writing is the DNA of memes; but humans have been around for much longer before these parasites learned to exploit our sociality.
5y ago

eric4smith 5y ago

The author was talking about romantic love. And indeed, they are right. Love is biological bribery. Science has proven that love is a mix of chemistry and emotions. (Or emotions caused by chemistry) that waxes and wanes and goes away over time. And the main reason for it is the perpetuation of the species by a mechanism that is outside of our consciousness and reason. When love is gone, what is generally left is (sometimes hopefully) a caring, appreciation, and high regard for the object of "love". And this is exactly why modern divorce rates are so high. Because marriages were always meant to be a coming together for reasons of survival, children, sharing of responsibilities and a series of common missions. Instead we have ruined the institution by making the main reason for it to be "love". So when the love inevitably wanes -- as it naturally does, if the couple has nothing else left (children, shared goals, common missions), why stay together? And yes, some people might say they have been in love for decades. Which is great! But it rarely happens. Generally love waxes and wanes. Rises and falls. Comes and goes. And those same couples that have been in love for decades will tell you all of the downswings and upswings over the years. I wish more people knew and understood this. A lot of heartache could be saved. Then again, the world would not be so interesting. Sigh.

makeitdouble 5y ago
I’m not sure to get your point on marriage. If people divorce because they have no other reason to stay together (no survival level risk, children, common missions etc.) how is it “ruined” ? Seems to me it’s necessity has just waned over time, being single has become a lot more viable in our societies and the system is pretty much working as it’s supposed to.
- Kbelicius 5y ago
  > If people divorce because they have no other reason to stay together (no survival level risk, children, common missions etc.) how is it “ruined” ? You aren't reading what GP has written so maybe you'll read it if I quote it without the context. GP wrote: "Instead we have ruined the institution by making the main reason for it to be 'love'.". So the answer to your question would be, it isn't. The institution of marriage isn't ruined, in GPs view, by the act of divorce when love is gone and there are no other reasons to say together but when entering in to marriage when no other reason besides love exists.

foxhop 5y ago

Love is energy which compells forward motion in the universe. We know that the law of attraction manifests collaboration & cooperation from the smallest parts like our models of the atom, to a single cell, to a human's body, to the mind & the global subconscious. This law is love. Love is not always right but it's the fuel, it's what drives this whole mad universe and it's you and it's me and we are excellent! Can you imagine, your heart beating for you each and everyday, the bacteria in your gut digesting food for your cells to uptake and absorb. Everything in perfect balance and homeostasis! Sure we may fall ill, but our bodies repair even without our focus. In fact it's often better to sleep when feeling sick and turn down the conscious ego altogether and slip into lala land: to the place of archetypes, the shadow, the subconscious, and unconscious. Our bodies rescue us, we do nothing (wu wei) and only need to wait through the uncomfortable now. A new day will rise and after a short time we feel whole again. We have all experienced this. We know this because this is love. Our bodies love us and if we treat others inside the universal system with love, I don't see why peaceful Freedom United with Love cannot find a natural balance, especially if love were inherently part of the technological constraints and engineering decisions. You know what true love is, you might have forgotten, but you know it. Love must be grown voluntary.

caaqil 5y ago
The "law of attraction" is not a thing, it's a pseudoscientific concept used by woo-woo peddlers. It is impressive how much text this comment contains and how little sense it makes.
- foxhop 5y ago
  & ur comment is also poetry in motion. Do not spiral yourself down too low, u might not find a way back out! Good luck & I love u regardless for showing me significant contrast to my own well being & awareness, conciousness, & spirit.

hasmanean 5y ago

No, love is a low entropy state between two people, like a chemical bond. Emotions like hatred, greed, jealousy etc have no place in that state.

tantalor 5y ago

Gives a new meaning to the phrase "having chemistry with someone"

bobthechef 5y ago

swayvil 5y ago

Love is a vision of divinity. Inevitable when illusion is stripped away. Which happens when you look at anything long enough. Be it an intentional looking or a fascination born of biochemical trickery.

amelius 5y ago

> people with higher levels of oxytocin generally are more open to relationships, they are more committed to wanting to work toward a relationship Can people get a test for this?

krageon 5y ago
No, because it is the kind of blanket statement that is a huge red flag for someone constructing a story that sounds nice to them.
- msoad 5y ago
  It should not be too difficult to measure tho. Imagine a speed dating setup
  - amelius 5y ago
    Even nicer if you can predict oxytocin from DNA sequences.
  - krageon 5y ago
    Oxytocin has a popsci connotation and an actual use and those are only peripherally related.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

Sapere_Aude 5y ago

I love material reductionism. It pretends to explain the thing it actually renders meaningless with its "explanation". This "explanation" is utter rubbish mumbled by the philsophically inept. It even pretends to be "science" all the while bringing in their "darwinian" "evolutionary" philosophy. (One thing I wonder often is, don't these people know fallacies, e.g. when trying to prove sth. to be caused by evolution, as a proof for evolution, while assuming evolution to be true in the first place? Classic "begging the question"-fallacy.)

quenix 5y ago
You don't seem to bring forth any real rebuttal of the arguments in the article. I personally think it's a bit oversimplified but very much viable. Why don't you think so?

Starlevel001 5y ago

Hypocrite that you are, for you trust the chemicals in your brain to tell you that they are chemicals. All knowledge is ultimately based on that which we cannot prove. Will you fight? Or will you perish like a dog?

hnthrowaway0315 5y ago

When I was young, I always wondered if LOVE is just a biological reaction to some chemical substance secreted by the brain when you meet someone you like. And of course after failing multiple times to "help" the brains of girls I liked to secret such substance, I quickly retreated to the safe haven of computer world and never thought about it. Now I read the article and wonder the same question: Is there a way to recreate the experience of love by agitating the brain to secret certain chemical substances?

jarpschop 5y ago
People would get hooked to that worse than heroin lol. I recently fell for a girl and being without her definitely felt like having abstinence syndrome. I was obsessively and relentlessly thinking about her every waking second.
- hnthrowaway0315 5y ago
  haha good luck man, you are having fun~~ yeah agreed with the addiction things.
kirsebaer 5y ago
Try MDMA.
andruby 5y ago
> Is there a way to recreate the experience of love by agitating the brain to secret certain chemical substances? Yes. But I really don't think you want to go there.
meowface 5y ago
Oxytocin nasal sprays may be able to temporarily induce a portion of this feeling, for some.
ciphol 5y ago
That idea is called "aphrodisiacs". Many have been tried throughout history but I don't think any of them really work.

DoreenMichele 5y ago

A couple of thoughts: I ran an email list at one point where we posted articles about research into brain wiring and discussed it and this doesn't jibe with my understanding. My understanding is that emotion is another means to relate to certain kinds of information. It's like a TLDR, a file summing up all of your experiences with X and informing you how to relate to X. So if your brain tells you "I'm in love!" that's shorthand for something like "This person meets some bar compared to other people." It's a summary of your life experience with all people, all romantic situations and all of your interactions with this one individual. People with high affect can make snap judgements because they have a strong signal, a loud TLDR file telling them "I love this!" or "I hate this!" People with low affect can't make snap decisions. They have to take their time to think things through and make conscious, intentional choices. They can't go with their gut. So I don't think of love as bribery. Love is a density of information telling you don't sweat the small stuff. You think this is someone to bet your future on when it's not possible to ever know for sure how that will go. The second thought is that her idea of choosing your friends doesn't resonate with me. Just like with romantic partners, my friends are people I just hit it off with. That mutual spark is there or it's not. I work at friendship. Friends are important to me. But if I could just decide somewhat unilaterally that "I want to be friends with x person" and make that happen, I wouldn't have been so socially isolated in recent years.

visarga 5y ago
Looks like the value function in reinforcement learning. You assign a high value to being close to your loved one. The value function is like you say a synthesis of your past experiences, learning what leads to positive or negative rewards. The rewards themselves are biologically coded in our brains by evolutionary pressures, but the value function is like integrating rewards over chains of situations and actions.

mediocregopher 5y ago

> That’s what separates us from the animals. Animals don’t use love to manipulate others. We do. I'm not convinced this isn't the exact modus operandi of my cat.

zby 5y ago

The article does not explain why bribery is the chosen analogy and not for example salary or something. Bribery for me is about paying someone to do something bad - here they talk about the reward i.e. the payment part but there is no mention about the 'something bad' part.

blurker 5y ago

> At the basis of love are four neurochemicals. Each has a different role but together they motivate us or to give us confidence to go into social relationships. So love is basically some chemicals causing us to feel lovey. Makes sense... > That’s what separates us from the animals. Animals don’t use love to manipulate others. We do. Wait, what? Do none of the animals have the same chemical processes? This is a big red flag to me. Time and time again we have found that when people have said "animals don't X, only humans do" we find that to be wrong. I stopped reading after this.

deweywsu 5y ago

circlefavshape 5y ago

In my experience article that says "X is what separates us from the animals" is very likely to have a high horseshit quotient

diag 5y ago
Right. Humans are animals. Trying to make a distinction on a biological level is always going to be tenuous.

kang 5y ago

> Love is chemicals & emotions No, love is not chemicals & emotions but the state of chemicals & emotions that is cause-effect for inter-human attraction/stable togetherness. Wow! IMAGINE THINKING LOVE EVOLVED at some point in time. There are other issues as well. To start off if I defined love minimally as that which is the cause of attraction then, --- What is the cause of attraction between poles of a magnet? * Using the socratic method, the concept of an "ideal North Pole" is inseparable from the "ideal South Pole", their togetherness is eternal and when they are not together they are attracted to be together, when they are together it is sustainable, so much so that the reason for their creation is for the other to exist. Why do they behave so though? Because they are "circular". No they are not circular jk but because they have a "natural configuration" or simply put its their "nature". Nature of circles is to roll, similarly, what is an object that has nature is to be attracted to this subject. --- Love itself, is eternal, and has no origin. It is name for a "thing"(conceptual, abstract, but a noun), like a circle. We say one's mind is in prayer but technically whole of their "natural configuration" is praying. Similarly, we say someone's body is in the game, but their whole self is involved. Similarly thus, heart is in love but their "whole configuration" is in the act of active loving, during their existence. At the very least it must NOT be taken for granted that a common subset of such configuration exists for all humans. Nature of their lover is subjective to lovers. Furthermore, to end, when you study the properties of theos and of love, they turn out to be same 'things'; god is love and love is god. OP needs to read about what they are writing.

cryptonector 5y ago

Love and empathy may well just be strategies that do well evolutionarily, but they are what we have. Without them we wouldn't be social animals because we'd have no problem killing each other -- "bribery" would not even have a place. I'd rather think of these qualities as noble than as mere evolutionary accidents that amount to "bribery".

sytelus 5y ago

If people getting married were forced to spend a day in divorce court, very few people would ever dare get married. "Love" is the biggest snake oil humans have produced and marketted to death. It's all good for survival of the species but if you want to change the world, do something above and beyon, make an impact - avoid this "love" bullshit and, no matter what happens, don't get married. Songs of the sirens will be loud and irresistable. You must learn to close your ears or you will ruin your life.

LeroyRaz 5y ago

What a mess. A) you are your brain chemistry. It makes no difference to the nature of love that you can point to chemical mechanisms. B) It is easier to cooperate between people with asymmetric wants and offers, as you a far more likely to have a mutually beneficial trade. It is rubbish to say that somehow building a relationship with someone of the other gender is harder, or evolutionarily more 'advanced' This reads like someone just using the credibility of research (which may or may not be credible) to put forwards their only slightly related pet philosophising. I feel this is actually doing a disservice to the wider community of those who try and discuss and study e.g. evolutionary motives, or gender differences, by being full of so much dross.